


forgive or soon forget

by ShowMeAHero



Series: as the ghost begins to bleed [28]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Babies, Birthday Party, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Families of Choice, Fluff, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Fic, Light Angst, M/M, Rumors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-22 11:42:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22282333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: The day before Riley’s second birthday, Eddie’s woken up by Richie’s phone buzzing with a call. Richie, apparently, ignores it in favor of rolling over and into Eddie, draping himself over him and pushing his face into Eddie’s throat, but Eddie shoves at him when his phone starts buzzing again.“Answer it,” Eddie orders him blearily. Richie, only half-awake himself, lifts his head and grabs his phone.“Heyo,” Richie says tiredly, flopping backwards into his pillows. His brow furrows, and he rubs at his face. “No, it’s four in the fucking morning, why would I be on Twitter?”
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Series: as the ghost begins to bleed [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1493912
Comments: 56
Kudos: 394





	forgive or soon forget

**Author's Note:**

> More plot! _More plot! **More plot!**_
> 
> Title taken from ["I Heard A Rumour"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-DZQ80vEVI) by Bananarama.

The day before Riley’s second birthday, Eddie’s woken up by Richie’s phone buzzing with a call. Richie, apparently, ignores it in favor of rolling over and into Eddie, draping himself over him and pushing his face into Eddie’s throat, but Eddie shoves at him when his phone starts buzzing again.

“Answer it,” Eddie orders him blearily. Richie, only half-awake himself, lifts his head and grabs his phone.

“Heyo,” Richie says tiredly, flopping backwards into his pillows. His brow furrows, and he rubs at his face. “No, it’s four in the fucking morning, why would I be on Twitter?”

Eddie hears that, and he gets a sinking feeling, because somebody calling them at four in the morning and asking if Richie’s checking fucking _Twitter_ cannot be good. He rolls over and grabs his own phone, propping himself up on his elbow to log into the Twitter account he rarely uses. It’s mostly just for shit like this and checking what Richie posts.

Richie’s name is trending at #4. His _own_ fucking name is trending at #9, which is kind of horrifying, because he can’t think of anything Richie’s done recently that Eddie’s been involved in that could earn them anything like this.

He taps Richie’s name in the trending topics and clicks on the first tweet that comes up, anxiety rattling around his chest as he reads.

Eddie’s heart is racing. He clicks the reply to see what pictures they’re talking about, and he’s led to a link of a listicle talking about whatever the fuck this all is. According the introduction on the article, an anonymous source revealed to TMZ that Richie had had an affair and had one child out of wedlock, possibly two. Eddie frowns down at the pictures that accompany the article, because they’re all just pictures of Richie with Riley. There’s a couple of pictures taken off of Instagram, too, even if Eddie’s not sure which one, and one of them is of Richie with Nora and Ezra. The caption that accompanies that particular photograph says, _potential siblings?_

“I fucking knew this would happen,” Eddie says. He looks over at Richie, who has since hung up the call and started scrolling through Twitter on his phone himself. “Rich, you shouldn’t have fucking told those people you had an affair.”

“It was easier to explain than witchcraft,” Richie answers absentmindedly. He throws his phone aside after a beat and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes under his glasses. Eddie pats him on the shoulder as Richie exhales harshly. “Eds, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Eddie says. “Unless you actually are having an affair.”

Richie snorts, turning into Eddie’s hold, pressing his forehead to Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie rubs up and over his back in long, slow loops.

“If I ever even think about leaving you, I’ve been replaced with an evil clone,” Richie assures him. Eddie keeps rubbing his back with one hand, but he picks up his phone again with the other and keeps scrolling through Twitter. _“Eds.”_

“I’m curious,” Eddie says. “What do we do now?”

“I have to make a statement about it,” Richie tells him. “Tweet something, I don’t know. Say that I love you so fucking much and— Also, like, Stan and Patty’s life is none of _their_ business, Ezra shouldn’t even be _on_ here—”

Eddie stares down at the picture, and the apathy of shock is starting to wear off as he looks down at Riley’s face on some fucking listicle about Richie having some secret family or something. A rush of anger comes in its place like a hot wave. He glares up at Richie.

“They can’t fucking post pictures of our children like that,” Eddie snaps. Richie just watches as Eddie climbs up and off their bed, pacing to one wall, then the opposite, but he can’t stay still anymore. His blood’s fucking boiling. “They can’t fucking do that, she’s _two—_ I’m going to— I don’t know what I’m going to do, I’m—”

“I’ll fix it,” Richie tells him. Eddie shoves his hands through his hair, trying to shake out the image of the article about Richie fucking cheating on him, but it’s burnt behind his eyelids. It’s not true, and he _knows_ it’s not true, because he was there when Richie made up the lie, but now everybody _thinks_ that and he doesn’t want people to think about him at _all,_ and he woke up _ten minutes ago._

“There’s nothing to fix, it just fucking is and we have to deal with it now,” Eddie says. He stops, exhales roughly, and spits, _“Fuck!”_

Richie keeps watching him, but the room goes quiet. It takes a minute of Eddie slowly cooling down but, after he’s brought his pulse down a little, he goes to sit down on the edge of the bed next to Richie, taking his good hand between his fingers and kissing the back of it.

“I’m sorry,” Richie says again. Eddie shakes his head, then sighs, dropping his face to press into Richie’s palm. Richie scratches absently at his jaw, and Eddie smiles, just a little, tipping his head to look over at Richie where he’s sitting up and leaning towards Eddie. “Seriously. I feel bad.”

“Don’t,” Eddie says. “You’ve always been more trouble than you’re worth. We’ll figure this one out.”

Richie grins at him, wrapping his hand up in Eddie’s pajama shirt and reeling him in.

* * *

The rest of the day, Eddie alternates between reading articles and Tweets about Richie supposedly cheating on him and starting a new family, and making sure everything is ready for Riley’s birthday party the next day. As she’ll excitedly tell anyone who will listen, she’s turning two years old, and it’s like the first birthday party ever thrown, to hear her scream about it. It makes Eddie a little sad, because she’s never seen anything like this before, but he’s mostly excited, too. She’s only turning two years old. He has plenty of time to put in a shitload of happy new memories for her.

There’s nothing new in the articles and Tweets until eleven, when Richie finally writes a Tweet of his own and posts it.

For Eddie’s part, he just likes and retweets Richie’s Tweets before posting a picture of the streamers and balloons they’ve got for the party tomorrow. He gets a shitload of replies, but he ignores them completely. Richie does the same, spending most of _his_ day letting Eddie work from home (“work from home,” in this case, means continuously updating Twitter) and playing with the girls. Eddie stops for lunch with them, but that’s it.

He’s endlessly distracted, as ever, by Richie padding around their apartment after lunch. Riley and Audrey are already asleep and in their rooms for the afternoon, but Nora’s going through a fussier sleepless phase, and so Richie’s taken to just pacing the apartment with her until she falls asleep. He hovers behind Eddie for a beat, dropping a kiss at the crown of his head before he keeps up his loop through the apartment. Eddie’s heart seizes in his chest.

Watching Richie leave the room, murmuring something that Eddie can’t hear to Nora, Eddie realizes he’s being dumb. He doesn’t need to fucking torture himself reading things about his family that he knows aren’t true. The only reason Richie said what he said in the first place was because he was trying to protect their family. He’s made his statement, their marriage is fine, and there’s nothing more that they can really do right now except wait.

Eddie closes all the tabs about Richie’s supposed “affair” that he has open — all the articles, and Reddit threads, and tumblr posts, and Tweets, and everything, all of it — and shuts his laptop. He follows after Richie instead, catching him around the waist and pulling him into a quiet kiss in the hallway.

* * *

There’s an unspoken agreement, Eddie realizes, between themselves and the other Losers not to bring up the stupid affair shit. _They_ all know it’s not true, because they know why Nora looks the way she looks and they also know that Eddie’s seconds from boiling over about it at any second, so nobody brings it up.

Instead, on Saturday — Riley’s second birthday — people start showing up for the party at noon, and everything begins going about as normally as it was ever going to go. Riley’s so excited to have a party that’s all about her that she keeps sprinting the length of the apartment, stopping at each person along the way and excitedly reaching up to get hugs from anyone who makes eye contact with her.

Eddie’s got Nora, even though she’s half-asleep, her head dropping against Eddie’s chest as he takes a bottle of juice out into their dining room and replaces the empty bottle there with it. Nora doesn’t even stir, so Eddie rubs at her back once his hand is free.

Their front doorbell buzzes. Eddie’s eyes sweep over their living room, frowning; he can’t think of anybody else who was supposed to come who wasn’t there already. Richie’s crammed in the corner of their sofa, the leg he’s still got in a cast propped up on the table as Audrey sits excitedly in this lap and eats crackers out of his hands.

The doorbell buzzes again. Eddie glances at it, then shifts to go to it, looking through the peephole. He’s a little on edge, with the articles and fucking everything. He doesn’t want to let in anyone he doesn’t know.

The woman he sees through the peephole is unfamiliar, somewhat, but vaguely familiar in a distant sort of way. The feeling comes like his memories of Derry had come, when they were all first flooding back, after Mike had called them all the first time. He frowns, then unlocks the door.

“Hello,” Eddie says. The woman’s eyes flit down to Nora, and Eddie instinctively turns back a little bit, obstructing her view of Nora’s sleeping face. “Can I help you?”

“Hi,” she replies. She tries to look past Eddie into the apartment, but Eddie doesn’t let her, stepping closer and pulling the door more tightly closed with him so she can’t get too good a look inside. She scowls at him for a moment before her face smoothes out. “I think my brother lives here. And I’m assuming you’re Eddie Kaspbrak.”

Eddie can feel his own face twist down as his heart starts to pound again. “Why would you assume that?”

“Because you look exactly the same as you did when you were eleven,” she says. Eddie stares at her, trying desperately to place her. It’s not until she finally makes eye contact with him and her blue eyes connect that he realizes who she is.

“Oh, no,” Eddie says unintentionally. He looks over his shoulder again, then looks back to Claire. He hasn’t seen Richie’s older sister since she graduated from high school when they were eleven years old and completely skipped town on them. Richie never brings her up, so Eddie doesn’t, either. He has no idea if she’s welcome or not. Richie didn’t mention anything about seeing her, let alone inviting her to Riley’s birthday party.

“I found you guys online,” she explains. “I read an article about him yesterday and it said his name is Kaspbrak now, and I remembered you, so I searched his name with Kaspbrak instead of Tozier. Did some digging and found your address here.”

It freaks the fuck out of Eddie, that someone could apparently _minimal_ fucking research and find their way to his goddamned apartment, but he tries not to let it show. Instead, he says, “I— So, Richie didn’t invite you?”

She rolls her eyes. _“No,_ I haven’t seen him since the fucking eighties. Can I just—”

“Who is it, Eds?” Richie calls from inside. Eddie and Claire make eye contact, and there’s a brief silent war between them that Eddie doesn’t even fully understand before Richie asks, “Eddie?”

Eddie steps back, pulling the door open further and turning to let Claire step in past him. He shuts the door softly behind her, and their apartment is dead silent as it _clicks_ into place, Claire and Richie staring at each other.

“I— I’m sorry, I don’t—” Richie starts to say, but he’s sitting up and his face is flushed as he stares hard at Claire. Eddie knows he’s already figured it out, but it doesn’t look like it’s fully processing yet. “I just—”

Eddie circles around Claire to go to Richie’s side, rubbing his shoulder while Richie stares hard at his older sister. Richie puts his hand over Eddie’s; his touch is light, so Eddie turns his hand and catches Richie’s grip, squeezing tightly. Richie squeezes back.

“I saw the articles about you,” she says. “So I looked you up and here I am.” She looks around and says, “Whose birthday is it? It’s not yours, Rich, right?”

Richie frowns up at her. “No, my birthday’s not for months, Claire. What do you want?”

“Nothing,” she says. “I’m just saying, I saw you online and I wanted to come and make amends. Mom and Dad are dead, it doesn’t mean we should keep acting like we died, too.”

“I haven’t seen you since I was eleven,” Richie says slowly. He glances up at Eddie, just briefly, before he looks back at his sister and says, “You didn’t do jackshit then, either.”

“What did you _want_ me to do?” Claire demands. Bev starts shepherding guests out of the living room; Ben takes Audrey and Nora from Richie and Eddie and slips out of the room with them. Riley goes to Eddie’s side and catches his pant leg, staring up at Claire, unwilling to be moved when Bill asks for her hand. Eddie lets Bill go without her, lifting her into his lap so she can settle. She gets nervous, if she thinks they’re not safe and she’s not with them. It’s just better if she stays.

“I wanted you to take me with you,” Richie snaps back at her. “You were _eighteen,_ Claire, and I was fucking _eleven._ You could’ve _done_ something—”

“They would’ve killed us both,” Claire says.

“You left _me_ to die,” Richie tells her. Her face goes all red, and she looks away from Richie, glaring out a window to her right. She’s tall like her brother, has long dark hair like her brother, but she doesn’t really _resemble_ him; for one, she won’t smile, and Richie hardly ever frowns.

“I did not leave you to _die—”_

“When you left,” Richie says, and his voice is so low that even Eddie glances back at him, unsettled, “I could’ve died. You let them do that to me and you just fucking walked out. What if I _had_ died that night? If it hadn’t been for Eddie, I—”

“You wouldn’t have,” Claire snaps. “You were always fucking fine, going off to see your friends all the time—”

“So I didn’t have to stay in the house!” Richie explodes.

“I don’t know what the fuck I expected,” Claire says to him, “I remembered exactly what you were like as a kid and you were so _fucking_ annoying, no wonder you’re starting shit two minutes into me showing up—”

“Who asked you to show up?” Richie demands. _“I_ didn’t fucking ask you to show up, Claire.”

“Is it true?” Claire asks, scowling down at him. She folds her arms across her chest, but Richie doesn’t move, but keeps staring up at her, face splotched red. “You’re actually a homo now, like Dad used to—”

“Don’t you _dare_ talk about—”

“The article I saw about you said you cheated on him,” Claire says, jerking her chin in Eddie’s direction, “and had a baby. Was that the baby, the one that looked like you—”

“Claire, get out,” Richie tells her. She scoffs at him. “I’m serious, get out. I don’t want to talk to you anymore, I don’t want to do this. It’s easier to just— Let’s just not do this, we don’t need to be friends—”

“You wanna know why I didn’t take you with me?” Claire asks. Richie stares up at her where she’s standing over his spot on the sofa, still bound there by his casts, and Eddie has to fight back the urge to step in between them. Richie’s over forty, he can take care of himself, and Eddie knows he can’t control him or take care of things _for_ him, as hard as it is to beat back those baser instincts.

“Wh—”

“Because I didn’t want to,” Claire tells him. She shrugs, throwing her arms up and saying, “Because I didn’t fucking _want_ to, Richie. I wanted to start over and I wanted to get out and I didn’t want _you_ there.”

Richie keeps staring up at her. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Eddie turns and carefully places Riley in his lap; Riley, for her part, goes easily, watching Eddie like a hawk with those huge dark eyes of hers behind her glasses. Eddie motions to Claire and says, “Get out.”

“I—”

“I’m not yelling,” Eddie tells her, “because it freaks my daughter out and it is her birthday. But I need you to know that if we were in this room alone, this interaction would be completely different, Claire. One hundred percent.”

Claire keeps her steely glare on him, but Eddie glares right back, the rage bubbling inside his chest keeping him easily incensed enough to stare her down. She does end up conceding first, scoffing and turning away.

“Fuck this shit,” Claire says. “I shouldn’t have come—”

“No fucking shit,” Eddie tells her. “Let’s go.”

“Let me say what I—”

“No,” Eddie says. He looks back over his shoulder at Richie, who nods once, absently. When Eddie turns back to Claire, it’s just to point towards the door. “Go, or I’ll make you go.”

Claire eyes him, clearly trying to read how honest he’s being. He secretly hopes, just a little, that she’ll push him, because he’s being completely honest. Mostly, though, he just wants her to leave, because Riley really will freak out if Eddie starts raising his voice or, God forbid, fucking throwing punches, and she’s been talking about this party for weeks. _Weeks._ She _deserves_ this.

Eddie won’t let Claire speak, because she just wants to worm her way back in, and he just won’t let her do it. He locks their front door behind her, then turns back to Richie where he’s clutching Riley on their couch. Everyone’s still out in the dining room and the kitchen; Eddie takes advantage of their momentary solitude to go to Richie, perching on the arm of the sofa and pulling Richie’s face into his belly, stroking his hair back.

“She didn’t want to take me,” Richie says quietly. Eddie bends down, cups Richie’s face in his hand and kisses his forehead. Richie’s eyes slip shut, and he says, “Why would she—”

“It’s not about you,” Eddie tells him. “Richie, I promise you, it’s not about you. She— I— There’s no excuse, but she’s not like you. She wanted to leave your parents and she did.”

“She left _me,”_ Richie says. Eddie kisses the top of his head again and rubs Richie’s back, pulling him in close. Riley’s caught between them, and she fidgets a little, but just so she can turn and hook her fingers into Richie’s shirt, hauling herself further up his lap. She buries her face in his cheek and kisses him there.

“There you go,” Eddie says as Richie laughs wetly, pulling back to pry Riley off his face and push her hair back out of her eyes. “She didn’t leave you, Richie. She left the situation. She was a confused kid and it’s no excuse to abandon you, I swear, it’s not, but I promise you she didn’t leave _you.”_

“How could—”

“Richie,” Eddie tells him. Richie huffs, looking up at him with a slight smile at one corner of his mouth. “I promise. I _promise._ Nobody could leave _you._ She wasn’t thinking about you.”

Richie shakes his head, clinging to Eddie’s shoulder for a moment before he shudders and pulls back, wiping at his face with his sleeves. He gets himself into some semblance of order before he motions to Eddie, saying, “Alright, the show’s over, people can come back in now.”

“Sorry, Daddy,” Riley says, as Eddie goes to let everyone know they can return to the living room.

“Oh, don’t you worry about me,” Eddie hears Richie tell her. “I’ve got you now. Everything worked out just fine for me.”

“Really?” Riley asks.

“Wouldn’t change a thing, short stack,” Richie tells her. Eddie rubs at his own face as he pushes into their kitchen.

“She’s gone,” he says. He’s met with frowns and confused looks, but he just motions to the living room and says, “The party continues, let’s get this show on the road, c’mon.”

Having five kids between the seven of them is helpful as a distraction, because nobody has to talk about Richie’s sister showing up or the supposed affair he’s involved in when Riley’s smashing her own face into her cake and Ezra is pulling Nora’s hair out by the roots and Jem’s refusing to let Bev out of her sight without screaming. Riley cares more about the wrapping paper than the gifts inside them, but she loves that people sing “Happy Birthday” to her, so they do it three times before Richie, laughing, finally has to stop her for asking for another round.

Audrey is the first one to fall asleep, which is no surprise, but Ezra follows shortly after her. Their friends and acquaintances don’t linger long after that, but the Losers and Patty and Georgie stay, lingering in Richie and Eddie’s living room long after all five kids have fallen asleep and the sun has been below the horizon for some time now.

“I’m sorry about your sister, Richie,” Bev says, leaning against him in the dim lamplight. Richie shrugs, running his fingers through her hair absently. “Really.”

“I figured she’d show up eventually,” Richie tells them. “My name is everywhere. Figures it’s for having an affair I didn’t even have instead of all the cocaine when I was younger. At least I _did_ the cocaine.”

Eddie sighs, but Richie just tosses a smile at him, so Eddie smiles back. Their hands are tangled between the sofa and their armchair, fingers interlocked and hanging down in the middle of their seats. “Sorry I kicked her out.”

“Nah, it was for the best,” Richie says. He leans his head against the back of the sofa and blows out harshly, disrupting a lock of hair that had settled in his eyes. “I don’t even think she knew what she wanted out of that.”

“Do you think she’ll c-come back?” Bill asks. Georgie’s sitting at his feet, leaning back against his legs and dozing lightly.

“Probably,” Richie says. He picks at a thread at the hem of his shirt. “I just— I don’t know. I don’t know why I thought it’d be different. I just—” Richie shrugs, then sniffles. His face is still red, and his voice cracks a little when he says, “She was just my sister, y’know?”

Eddie squeezes his hand tight just as Bev turns to wrap her arms around him, hugging him tightly and saying, “I’m your sister now, Richie, and I don’t make scenes at parties.”

“Your biggest character flaw,” Richie jokes, teary-eyed. “You could stand to be a little more dramatic, Bev.”

“Don’t encourage her,” Ben says. Bev nudges him at the end of the sofa with her bare heel, shoes long since abandoned near the front door.

“She’s right, though,” Mike tells Richie; Richie shifts, leaning his cheek into his own shoulder to look at Mike as he continues, “She’s your blood sister, yeah, maybe, but we’re your real brothers and sisters, I think.”

Richie glances over them all, then looks to Eddie. All he can bring himself to do is squeeze Richie’s hand again and offer him a smile; he gets a watery grin in return, and Richie laughs, looking back over their friends.

“We love you, Richie,” Stan says. “Even if you cheated on Eddie with my wife.”

Richie chokes on a laugh, snorting so hard it catches in his chest and he almost wakes Riley up trying to breathe, but it makes the rest of them crack up, too.

“I don’t know how anyone can look at you and think you’re capable of keeping a secret second family,” Bill comments. Richie flings a coaster at him, which Bill almost avoids before it clocks him on the shoulder, and he muffles a laughing yelp.

“I don’t want to deal with any of this shit,” Richie groans. Eddie pats the back of his hand as he says, “I have a meeting with some PR dudes from my show on Monday and I have to make another statement and talk about all this in therapy, _fuck.”_

“But look at how well you’re doing,” Ben points out. “Richie, man, you’re already preparing to work this through in therapy and figure out all the shit at your job.”

“Ben’s right,” Stan says.

“I hate to say it,” Mike adds, “but you might be grown up now, Richie.”

Richie groans again. “Don’t say shit like that, Mike, it hurts my feelings.”

Patty heaves herself up off the sofa next, scooping Ezra up from where he’s sleeping on a blanket next to Nora and reaches for Stan. He kisses her forehead before putting her coat over her shoulders and taking her home. Bev and Ben leave next with Jem, and Bill, Mike, and Georgie after them, until everyone’s gone and the apartment is clean and all the girls are in bed.

Even though they’re all asleep, Richie can’t stop sitting up in their room, setting up his post in the glider they keep in the corner. Eddie leans in the doorway, watching him, but Richie’s not really doing anything except looking tiredly over the girls as they sleep.

“You should get in your actual bed,” Eddie tells him. Richie sighs, holding his hand out. Eddie goes to him, catching his fingers and leaning into him so Richie can turn his face into Eddie’s chest. “You’ll sleep better there.”

“I’m just feeling weird,” Richie tells him. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about all this.”

“There’s no _supposed to,”_ Eddie reminds him. “All you need to do is feel how you feel. There’s nothing wrong with that, no matter what the feelings are.”

“Promise?”

“I promise,” Eddie says. Richie kisses the back of Eddie’s hand, then holds his arms up, and Eddie hoists him up, helping him hobble his way into their bedroom and collapse into their bed. He makes short work of him; they’ve got Richie’s limited-mobility bedtime routine down to a science, and it doesn’t take them long to get Richie ready for bed when they work together.

When the lights are finally off and they’ve settled down, Eddie can feel his heart still racing. Richie’s hand is tracing absently up and down Eddie’s back, and he sighs, softly.

“What’s eating you, Eds?” Richie asks. Eddie shakes his head. “Spaghetti Man, don’t you start keeping secrets from me—”

“No, it’s nothing secret,” Eddie tells him. “I just didn’t really process today that it was Riley’s second birthday, with everything going on. She’s two now.”

The both of them are quiet for a beat.

“Two,” Richie repeats. “Two years is really not that fucking long, like. All things considered.”

They’re quiet again, and then Eddie sits up.

“Can we go back and sit in the nursery again?” he asks, and Richie’s already swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

“Yup, help me up, let’s go,” Richie says. Eddie hauls him up and helps him right back down the hall to the nursery again so they can watch the girls sleep for a while longer.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this plot-heavy update that has brought this series over 200,000 words!
> 
> You can (and should!) come chat with me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicolelianesolo) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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